Burden

My personal blog has evolved since I created it three and a half years ago. Originally, it was to reflect on various things and to share some of my writing. Over time, however, the focus has narrowed to my struggles with severe depression, OCD, social anxiety, agoraphobia and detachment disorder.

I thought it would be a good thing to share my struggles for two reasons. First, if one of the few readers I have was battling one of the same issues I have, I wanted my posts to silently say You are not alone. The second reason why I blog about my struggles is to help with the stigma that shrouds mental illnesses. I'd like people to understand that someone dealing with severe depression or one of my other issues is a normal person. In other words, some people with mental illnesses are still living everyday lives just like mentally healthy people. We're not buried beneath a blanket or expecting handouts from people. We hold professional jobs but some days, it's a struggle. I want people to see the mentally ill as people. Most of us are not crazy or dangerous to anyone but ourselves. Some of us are reacting to horrible childhood events that scarred us and feeling overwhelmed with just the basics of everyday life.

But I wonder if it has all backfired. In my Deceptions trilogy I'm working on, one of the main characters keeps a dark secret from her best friend because she doesn't want the secret to burden him. In wanting to share my struggles, I just realized that I'm burdening my few readers with my words. 

It was disrespectful of me to lay out my struggles for people to read. My words often cause worry and it's not fair for me to add to anyone's worries. People have their own struggles they should be focusing on and not mine. I don't want to burden others. I am no one's responsibility. Those that should have a little responsibility for me - my family - do not care and unfortunately, because of various life events, I do not care about myself. As I think I've said before, it's hard to care about myself when so few people in my life care or validate me.

Of course it would be nice to have people who care but everyone already has their lives set and I'm just not going to inject myself and troubles into already established lives. This causes more burden and I'm afraid I've burdenened my few readers  and my co-workers whom I've shared my struggles with. I know the silence I get from people is because they do not know what to say to me or do. With my co-workers, they sometimes forget I exist. I'm fully aware that my issues make people uncomfortable and that's the last thing I want. I apologize to my few readers if I have burdened you in any way or made you feel uncomfortable.

I feel like I no longer should blog about what I'm going through. I thought it might be a helpful thing but now, I'm not so sure. I thought it might be a good way to update people on my struggle but like I said, I don't want to burden anyone.

Dana